BY BRETT NIERENGARTEN @PRORODEOBRETT
The second addition of the Monday Notebook will focus mostly on Fort Worth, as there is plenty to discuss from the first leg of the Texas Swing. However, there are also notes from the Homestead Championship Rodeo in Florida, Rocky Mountain Extreme in Montana and the Rapid City Xtreme Bulls and Broncs in South Dakota.
Don’t let the Texas Swing fool you, rodeo is nationwide every week. Now, let’s get into it.
- Tanner Butner set the arena record in Fort Worth. The Wyoming cowboy was marked 94 points on Andrews Rodeo’s All or Nothin’ to break the previous mark of 92 set by Stetson Wright in 2022 on Y U R Friskey. Butner, who made the Finals in Denver, has had his last seven rides marked 81.5 points or better.
- Eight of the 12 Round-winning saddle bronc rides have been 88 points or more in Fort Worth. For comparison, there was only one ride of 88+ in the first 16 Rounds in Denver and just three total.
- Cole Reiner, Kade Bruno, Jordon Briggs and Hailey Kinsel all had clean sweeps in their brackets in Fort Worth. Reiner did it with 86.5 and 90 points in the bareback riding, Bruno was 85.5 points and 87 points in Bracket 5 in the saddle bronc riding while Briggs did it in Bracket 3 of the barrel racing and Kinsel did so in Bracket 4. Briggs and Kinsel are also the last two World Champions in the event.
- Seven of the Top 8 saddle bronc riders in the PRCA World Standings have made the NFR before. The only one who has not is No. 2 cowboy Brody Wells. The one with the most qualifications of the bunch is Jacobs Crawley with 10 and combined, the Top 8 have made 31 NFRs.
- Four bull riders and four saddle bronc riders were 85 points or more at the Homestead Championship Rodeo. Typically, a rodeo that pays under $60,000 has one, maybe two rides of that caliber in each event. Furthermore, in Odessa - which paid more than triple what Homestead did - there was five total bronc rides and bull rides of 85 or more.
- There have been 10 breakaway roping runs in the 1s in Fort Worth so far this year. Last year through 12 rounds there were five. The fastest run of both rodeos was 1.7 seconds, which Cheyenne Guillory did in Bracket 4 this year to tie Sawyer Gilbert’s arena record.
- Kaycee Field had the highest-marked bareback ride of the season in Fort Worth. Feild was 93 on Night Crawler of Pickett Pro Rodeo and last year, he was the same score on OLS Tubs Stevie Nicks to win the Finals.
- Bull rider Chance Schott has won three $4,000+ checks since Jan. 17. In the last two weeks, he is 5-for-9 with two rides of 90+ and four rides of 85+. Those three paydays came in Denver, Fort Worth and most recently in Rapid City, where he won the Xtreme Bulls on Jan. 27.